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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01393 8029
MAY 3 1909
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THE TAFT KIN*^^. ^&
?JI7?3[ ILLIAM howard taf t
^i^J^ comes from straight New Eng-
land stock. He himself was born
in Cincinnati, but his father was born in
Townsend, Vt., and his mother in our
own Boston. The various ancestors back
to the immigrants were identified in race
.and religion with old time New Eng-
land. The Taft homestead is in Uxbridge,
Mass., where Robert Taft settled about
1680. The notable reunions of the family
take place at the ancient home. Robert
Taft, a housewright, appears in Braintree
before 1679, owning land, but plying his
trade, that is, constructing frame buildings,
transporting them to Boston and erecting
them. Little is known of Robert Taft in
his beginning labors in Xew England. He
* The Taft Kin appeared as a signed article
on the editorial pa^e of the Boston Evening
Transcript of March 4th, 1909. Extra copies
can be obtained by addressing the writer, Rev.
Anson Titus, 10 Raymond Avenue, West Soin-
erville, Boston, Mass.
"^5- 44-6
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/taftkinOOtitu
was no mean citizen in Mendoo from 16S0
onward, settling in that part of Mendou
which in 1727 became Uxbridge. He had
many acres "near the pond," and on each
side of the Mumford River. He raised
fiveTOsky and lusty sons, and they made
the farms bring forth harvests, and the
waterways to turn wheels. They erected
and maintained their own bridge for their
own and the town's convenience, and were
allowed for the same by the people of
Mendon. ' ' The bridge the Tafts built ' ' is
a phrase often in town reports and court
records. It was not only a landmark and
starting point for measuring distances, but
was an enterprise which told mightily in
developing the new lands of the Nipmuek
region. The value of a bridge across a
river in a semi-wilderness or in settled
towns can scarcely be estimated. It was
a bold plan, earnestly executed, and the
bridge was maintained at no small annual
cost in labor. Robert Taft was a selectman
in Mendon in 16S0, and in 1704 was one
of ten men to purchase the Indian title of
the town of Sutton, the same being con-
firmed by the General Court.
The five sons of Robert Taft were
3
Thomas, Robert, Daniel, Joseph and Ben-
jamin. These men intermarried with like
good stock and reared large families. The
son Joseph, born in 1680, was a captain in
the Provincial Militia and a man of prom-
inence in town affairs. His wife was
Elizabeth Emerson, a granddaughter of
Rev. Joseph Emerson, first minister of
Mendon. They had sons Moses, Peter,
Joseph and Aaron. Rev. Adin Ballon in
his history of Milford says : "The Tafts
were prolific and famous for large families."
Peter Taft, born 1715, married Elizabeth
Cheney and had sons Henry, Gershom,
Aaron and Peter. Aaron was born 1743.
Tradition says he took a partial course at
Princeton College. He married Rhoda
Rawson and had eleven children. About
1800 he removed from Uxbridge to Towns-
'end, Yt., where he passed away after nine
years of toil on the new lands. Pie was a
Minute Man and responded on the alarm
from Concord and Lexington. Rhoda
Rawson was of excellent descent,, from
Edward Rawson, a principal founder of
Boston, through Rev. Griudall Rawson,
whose wife Susan descended from Rev.
John Wilson, the first minister of Boston,
4
aud from Rev. John Hooker, the first min-
ister and founder of Hartford, Conn.
Josiah Taft, a grandson of Robert Taft,
the immigrant, was at his decease the larg-
est taxpayer of Uxbridge, and the town
meeting granted the right of suffrage to his
widow during the minority of her son, and
she exercised it with credit to her intelli-
gence. On an occasion the Province of
Massachusetts Bay laid special requisition
for money upon towns for general pur-
poses, possibly for some military emer-
gency, and it was her vote in town meeting
which carried the question. She royally
displayed her patriotism by her support of
the provincial measure.
The military record of the Taft family
is excellent. Captain Joseph Taft, in the
early part of the eighteenth century, had
kinsmen for compatriots. The perils of the
wilderness and the ravages of the Indians
were constant. In the struggle for Amer-
ican Independence there were at least sixty
of the name from Massachusetts in the
service. There were two from Connecticut
and five from Vermont. Aaron Taft, who
settled in Vershire, Vermont, was a Revo-
lutionarv soldier, and was one of four
185S08G
5
brothers who stood above six feet and
weighed over two hundred pounds, re-
sembling their father.
Aaron Taft for long y ears was town clerk
of Uxbridge. From the financial stress
following the War of the Revolution he
failed to recover himself as he wished,
and like many another, with nothing to
lose and everything to gain, struck out for
Vermont. He may not have replenished
his estate as he desired, but he contributed
a wealth of character to the new town in a
Vermont wilderness. His eldest son, Peter
Rawson Taft, born 17S5, was a lad of four-
teen, and led a cow from Uxbridge to
Townsend. The cow was no unimportant
factor in a growing family in a season of
pinching want. The recuperation of the
American Colonies following the Revolu-
tionar}* War, by opening new lands, and
the marvellous harvests which the virgin
soil produced, will ever be regarded as one
of the wonders of our national life. So
with the Taft family as with many another.
Stress may have been with them for a few
years, but industry and prudence, sharp-
ened by want, amid the bounties which new
lands produced, replenished the family fort-
6
tines. The widow of Aaron Taft survived
many years, and Peter Rawson Taft, the
son, entered upon the estate of manhood
with a generous assortment of mother wit
which stood him in need through a long
and useful life. He was an educated man,
though he was innocent of academic train-
ing, but he had the gift of using the knowl-
edge he had, and more was bestowed upon
him. He taught school, was a land sur-
veyed was a trial justice from 181S, judge
of probate, 1S30-1S32, and judge of Court
of Common Pleas, 1S35 onward. He also
was a chief promoter of the Academy at
Townsend. Peter Rawson Taft, in 1S41,
removed to Cincinnati, where his only son,
Alphonso, had established himself in the
profession of law, and after a busy life he
and his good wife, after a married life of
fifty-six years, passed forward to the world
immortal about 1S67. The wife was Sylvia
Howard, a daughter of a sturdy pioneer of
Vermont.
Alphonso Taft was born in 1S10, was
reared among the homespun living of prac-
tical people, prepared for college at the
Townsend Academy, graduated at Yale
1833 with high honors, was an instructor
7
at Yale and admitted to the Connecticut
bar in 1838, removed to Cincinnati, accu-
mulated an extensive practice, was often
summoned to serve Ohio, in 1865 became
a judge, 1876 a member of President
Grant's cabinet, afterwards minister to
Austria and Russia, and died in 1S91, aged
eighty years. The delight of his life was
the preparation and deliver}- of an histori-
cal address in 1S74 at Uxbridge before a
reunion of the descendants of Robert Taft.
It gave him pleasure ; he found joy in re-
calling the traditions of his tribe, and the
occasion will be long treasured in the
annals of the family.
Alphonso Taft married first Fanny
Phelps, who was the mother of two sons ;
and he married second Louisa Torrey, by
whom were three sons and a daughter.
These wives and mothers were choice
women. Louisa Torrey, the mother of
William Howard Taft, was the daughter
of Samuel D. Torrey, and wife Susan
Holman, a daughter of Asa, and a grand-
daughter of Colonel Jonathan Holman, one
of the marked patriots of the American
Revolution. Maternal as well as paternal
ancestry contributed to place the man
8
whom the nation delights to honor under
great obligations to revere the royal com-
pany of men and women of earlier New
England.
The catalogues of our colleges reveal
that the Taft family have been ambitious
for an education. Harvard University
registers thirteen before 1905, Brown Uni-
versity registers twenty-six, Dartmouth
College five, and Michigan University four.
It is for Yale University to claim the honor
of training William Howard Taft. Judge
Alphonso Taft was a loyal alumnus of
Yale. He kept in touch with its tradi-
tions, and in its corporation was of influence
in moulding its action. His five sous and
several grandsons pursued their studies in
Yale and won its highest honors. It is
not a campus nor buildings which make a
..college, but its students who turn adversi-
ties into victories. Happy Yale that the
Taft family turned to its halls of learning.
IIAY.'b
W& N.MANCHESTER,
•s&? INDIANA
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